David Reynolds will start on pole position for this evening’s Newcastle 500 Race 2 after topping the Top 10 Shootout this afternoon.
Reynolds also provisionally held pole after the earlier timed qualifying session and put together a stunning final sector to top a Chaz Mostert blinder.
Mostert will lock out the front row for Mustang with James Golding the first of the Camaros in third and Cam Waters keeping him company in fourth.
Shane van Gisbergen was the lone Kiwi to qualify for the shootout and set the fifth fastest time. Tim Slade will start next to him off the third row.
Broc Feeney will start the row behind his Red Bull teammate as Triple Eight Racing go about trying to make up for this morning’s shock announcement of their disqualification from Race 1 after finishing one-two.
Jack Le Broq starts next to Feeney following an impressive qualifying with Todd Hazlewood following with the ninth best time.
James Courtney rounds out the top 10 after crashing out on his lap.
Both Matt Payne and Andre Heimgartner were unlucky to miss the Top 10 Shootout, Payne left starting an impressive 12th with Heimgartner one spot behind.
Feeney was the first to run in the shootout and went to work to put in a 1:12.7401. He was immediately up a position with the following Jack Le Broq unable to match his time.
James Courtney followed and became the first car in the Gen3 era to sustain major damage by making heavy contact with the wall nose first on a tight left hander. Running slightly offline into the turn was his undoing.
Damage was severe on the front right of the Mustang leaving the Tickford crew with a lot of work to get him race ready this afternoon. If he does return then he’ll still start 10th.
A delay was required to clear Courtney’s car before Todd Hazlewood took to the track. He too was unable to match Feeney’s time to give the Red Bull youngster a net gain of four spots off his provisional result.
Mostert was the one who was able to better this and did so impressively, a gain of .6530 over the pack. The following Slade reduced this to .5397 to move into second.
Van Gisbergen then completed his run and went purple in the first sector before dropping off Mostert’s time and slotting in the order ahead of Slade in second.
Golding has shown incredible pace today and continued this fall just short of Mostert’s time with only Waters and Reynolds to run.
Yesterday’s race winner also ran quick but was unable to better the time of Mostert and Golding but topped van Gisbergen to sit third.
That was soon to be fourth with Reynolds putting in a massive final sector to take pole. This came off the back of a slower opening two sectors before Reynolds responded to go top by .006 seconds.
It was Reynolds who went fastest in the earlier timed qualifying ahead of yesterday’s race winner Waters. Golding was third and best of the Camaros with only .0456 seconds separating the trio.
Van Gisbergen left it late to move into the top 10 to set the fourth fastest lap despite sitting outside as the timer neared zero. He was the sole New Zealander to progress.
Slade qualified in fifth whilst Mostert, Hazlewood, Courtney, Le Broq and Feeney were the others to qualify.
Payne put in an incredible qualifying session and looked likely to progress only for a flurry of late times to push him down to 12th, one spot behind the unlucky 11th Will Davison.
Heimgartner will start on the row behind by going 13th fastest and will have Mark Winterbottom for company. He’d also been in the top 10 until the dying stages but was unable to improve on his best time on his last lap.
Yesterday’s pole sitter Brodie Kostecki couldn’t replicate his form and was shockingly 15th.
Anton de Pasquale’s tough weekend also continued with the Shell V-Power #11 forced to start 21st.
Racing today gets underway at 5.20pm and will be shown live on Sky Sport 5 (055).
Header Image: Supercars
